Study
and Results:Scientific
evolution has its own rhythm. How can this rhythm be described and
made visible? To answer this question a relative indicator, called R-sequence,
was designed. The construction of the new indicator starts from a
publication-citation matrix. Based on such a matrix a series of
observed values and corresponding expected values are calculated.
Ratios of pairs of observed and expected values compose the
R-sequence. Two calculation methods of an R-sequence – the
triangle method and the parallelogram method – are introduced. As
a case study JASIS&T’s
R-sequences have been obtained.

What’s
New? The idea and method to design the R-sequence is new. R-sequences are
time-dependent indicators, derived from publication and citation
data, but independent of the absolute number of publications and
citations. Therefore they can be used to study and compare temporal
properties of research between different scientific fields, nations,
institutes or journals.

Limitations:Mathematical
properties of the R-sequences are not yet derived in detail. Data
collection necessary for determining an R-sequence is often tedious,
and great care must be exercised not to collect wrong data.

Study and Results: Local union officials are involved in many roles that
require using information. This study is part of a larger research
project on the information needs and information-seeking behavior of
local union officials that also examines whether a model developed
to explain the information-seeking behavior of professional workers
is applicable to the behavior of local union officials. A
questionnaire was distributed to local union officials in the state
of Illinois to find out what information sources they use to carry
out their roles and whether the specific role affected the type of
source used. One section of the questionnaire asked about their
library use and the nature of their experiences when using
libraries. Local union officials use more than one type of library,
and they are usually satisfied with their experience when using
libraries. Their chief problems have more to do with inadequacies in
library collections than with library services, and they have
various suggestions for how collections and services could be
improved to make libraries more useful to them. Although suggestive,
richer information on local union officials' information-seeking
behavior is needed in order to determine the proposed model's
explanatory power.

What's
New?The
study presents new information on a group of library users that have
not been studied in decades and relates their library use to their
union roles. The study collected specific information about library
use, both in order to understand their information-seeking behavior
and also in order to learn how to improve library service to this
group. It also proposes a possible model for union officials'
information-seeking behavior with directions for further research to
determine the applicability of the model.

Limitations:
The questionnaire was distributed in only one state, and the
response rate was less than ideal, although typical of other surveys
of union officials. The numbers in some categories were too small to
test hypotheses, and all data is presented in terms of frequencies.
The questionnaire, however, is one that could be used for surveys in
other states or on a national level.

Study
and Results:
In light of the growing interest in open access of scientific
publications, we investigated whether Web access can affect journal
impact. We sampled 5,972 articles published in 114 journals covering
four science disciplines. We searched for both ISI citations and Web
citations to these articles and found that the numbers of citations
correlated. However, the wider reach of the Web is evident: Web
citations are both more numerous and more evenly spread among
journals regardless of country of publication. About 30% of Web
citations in each subject area indicate intellectual impact
(citations from papers or class readings).

What's
New?Web
citations correlate with ISI citations and provide a more global
assessment of impact as well as a balance to the geographic or
cultural biases. Web citations could supplement or potentially
replace analysis using citation databases.

Limitations:
Four science disciplines were examined; therefore the conclusions
may not hold in very different fields, such as humanities. The
volatility of the Web and its openness to manipulation also limit
extrapolation to other disciplines or times.

Erratum:
We apologize for some serious cut-and-paste confusion in the
“What's New?” column in the August/September 2005 issue of the Bulletin
in the summary of an article by Jeffrey Pomerantz. One of his
articles did, in fact, appear in volume 56, number 7 of JASIS&T.
However, the title of the article in the citation is that of a
summary we had previously published by Christian Schloegl and
Wolfgang Stock, while the summary itself belongs to one of Jeffrey
Pomerantz's later JASIS&T articles, “A conceptual
framework and open research questions for chat-based reference
service.” That article will appear in JASIS&T volume
56, number 12. We do not have a summary for his earlier article, the
correct title of which is “A linguistic analysis of question
taxonomies.”